About Me

Thanks for visiting How Can You Sing Better? My name is Nicole and I’ve been a musician for over thirty years. I trained as a pianist from the age of six, but after years of spending a lot of time working with choirs and bands, I became interested in taking singing lessons to improve my voice.

I’d always been told by people that I had a nice voice, but I always felt that it was too quiet and small. I also wished I could sing higher, as my range was only about an octave and half. I experienced terrible nerves whenever I had to get on the stage, and wanted to learn more about what I could do to get over, or at least control, my fear of performing.

I’m into research, so I got out lots of books and read as much as I could on the subjects of singing and performing, but eventually I realised that books would only get me so far. Reading about vocal exercises and techniques in books was not enough, because I could never tell if I was really doing exactly what they were asking me to do!

I finally realised that if I wanted to learn how to sing, what I really needed was singing lessons.

I asked around, and a friend gave me the number of his singing teacher. I studied with her for six months, spent a small fortune in weekly lessons, put in hours doing the things she asked me to do, but didn’t really get results. I switched teachers and the same thing happened – he had a different style of teaching and a different philosophy, but I ended up with the same lack of progress. He’d ask me to do airy things like ‘sing through the top of my head’ or ‘throw my voice to the back of the room’, but couldn’t tell me exactly how I was supposed to accomplish these things!

More frustration.

Just as I was starting to think that singing was not for me, I decided to give it one last try with a different teacher. She saved me. After just a month of weekly lessons (and daily practice!) my voice had changed considerably. I learned about the mechanics of the voice, proper diaphragmatic breathing, how to use abdominal support, ways to open the back of the throat, opening up resonators in the body, and how to support my tone to make sung notes clearer, stronger and longer without running out of breath.

It was only later that I discovered that my teacher was using the same method that Brett Manning teaches in his SS360 program.

As I practiced singing along while I played the piano every day at home, my family were amazed at how my voice blossomed. I was thrilled. It was hard work, but the results were brilliant. My tone was stronger, my range extended, my confidence increased and within a year I was entering music festivals, singing at weddings, and soloing at local concerts. The benefits of taking up practical singing lessons were enormous, even though that was still just the beginning – cultivating and honing the ability to sing beautifully is an addictive kind of freedom!

I have now spent over a decade with my own music students. What I love most about teaching are those ‘a-ha!’ moments where you suddenly see that something you’ve said, or demonstrated, is resonating with a student – a shift happens, something clicks, and all of a sudden they can do something with their voice that they couldn’t do five minutes before. It’s so thrilling to watch and be a part of, especially as you never forget how it feels when it happens to you.

I hope to use this site to provide guidance to singers who need advice and don’t have their own singing teacher to ask questions of (though if you don’t have a teacher, a high quality online singing program is a great and affordable option).

I welcome your questions and feedback, and hope to be of value to you in your musical journey – either drop a comment below or email me at hello@howcanyousingbetter.com.

Happy singing!

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Comments

Thank you so much for your tips and advice! When I started following your technique I already had a deep frank Sinatra kind of voice, with a lot more practice I hope to perfect it, thanks for helping me find my voice!

Nicole, thanks so much for your awesome advise! My son is almost 16 (tall and handsome according to others too :)) and is preparing for The Voice auditions; his style is classic and contemporary standards and although he is open to other genres he is confident about his style and his niche is more the crooning type and he has a bass voice with a good range (still improving). One of the questions I have about The Voice (red ticket) callback auditions (just in case) is their definition of “current / popular” songs for the second callback. Does that mean songs that are currently on the top 100 charts? Or does that mean older songs that are popular in general? Please shed some light on this if possible, you sound like you are “in the know”. Thanks, Katherine

I’ll start off by offering a great big apology because it’s taken me so long to respond to your question. I had a baby, and suddenly found myself with absolutely no spare time for things like web sites – as a mother to a 16 year old I’m guessing you’d already know all about that! So thank you so much for your question AND your patience.

I can see why you’d ask the question above, because if your son’s a crooning bass he’s likely to be very well suited to a lot of older repertoire and not Eminem’s latest release (did you know that most basses are tall, while tenors tend to be shorter? Funny how body type is very often linked to vocal type). I’m very glad to sound “in the know” (yay!), but as I’m not directly related to the show I can only give my opinion as to what The Voice considers to be “current/popular”. I’ve been watching for quite a few years so at least it’s an educated guess!

I think they’re essentially looking for songs that people know, songs that people recognise when they hear them. New or old, it doesn’t matter, so long as the song is not too obscure. They audience doesn’t want a contestant they don’t know singing a song they’ve never heard before, and producers know that. Audiences want a connection, and familiar song choice is a big part of that.

Song choices should either be recognisable because they’ve been played a lot recently (“current”), or because they’ve been around for a while and people still play them regularly (“popular”) – on the radio, frequently downloaded online, from classic albums, etc. Sinatra recorded ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’ over sixty years ago, but it’d be a fine song choice because it’s still popular (and don’t underestimate the power of nostalgia when it comes to music!). On the other hand, a song from a completely unknown band, even if it was released less than a year ago, would not be a great choice.

That’s not to say a song from unknown band couldn’t be absolutely amazing, but The Voice is mainstream, prime-time entertainment. Thinking about your audience and what they are going to enjoy most is a smart, strategic way to approach song choice. It may be called The Voice, but there are plenty of other factors at play.

Best wishes, and good luck to your son. Keep me posted with how he goes :-)
Nicole